Monthly Archives: January 2012

Her Majesty’s Suite

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Butch Walker and the Black Widows – Synthesizers

Hear Ye Hear Ye,

All hail princess (no name yet), for her domain shall be vast, pink, and probably smell of girl. Yes folks, her majesty’s castle is being constructed daily in preparation for her arrival. All the necessary tapestries and furniture are being put in place, and her bedding is made of the finest Egyptian cotton. So while I’m slightly exaggerating, you have yet to see the layout, which I’m sure I’ll share in a blueprint form in coming posts.

On a positive note, I was successfully able to convince my wife to pay a professional to give the room the quality paint job that it deserved. I did the math people. I work a few extra hours with my side consulting gig and save myself hours of frustration and turmoil, which in turn makes us all much happier. I mean who wants a fussy dad with only 10 weeks left….not this guy. So the cost of a painter, a small business loan for the furniture, and the eventual build up of wall adornments from Target will all add up to what I feel will be the perfect growing room for our child. We got the bedding nailed down after a clutch “Aunt Abbi” sale on GILT, which helped pick the color and general “theme” of the room. So I have a lot of trouble with this idea of a theme for a child’s room. My first impression when someone asked me about the room theme was “It’s a bedroom theme.” I was a bit confused. I mean, we’re not trying to lay out 7 rooms of seduction at your local motel. I really don’t want my daughter growing up in the “space room”, or the “rumble in the jungle” bungalow. Better yet, we could always revert to some classic “Office” episodes and recreate some of Shrute Farms B & B motifs such as the Irrigation room. Either way, if we had to pick something I would have to say that we’re going for a “girl” themed room, and if there are some vague Dave Matthew’s band references in there, I think we’ll be happy campers.

Overall I think though that we’re pretty ready. My wife’s inability to cover our small child with her rather large belly leads to some great one liners on a daily basis. My favorite so far : “I keep going to bed with my shirt down, and waking up with it UP here.” It’s like our child is already pulling a Girls gone wild at the expense of my wife’s sanity, and with only expansion from here, I have a feeling this will continue to get interesting. So to all those expecting dads out there, you know who you are, be ready for some of the greatest “whose line is it anyway?” type content in the third trimester. I have to say that if nothing else, this kid makes us laugh more at each other than we ever did before. Have a great night subscribers, we’re calling it a late one with a 9:30 bed time. Here is a reminder of one of my favorite Office episodes:

Holidays Part Two

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[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/08%20Winter%20Song.mp3]

The Head and the Heart – Winter Song

After what totaled 5 Christmas centric parties, we finally made it to New Years, in what I call the “we’re just trying to stay up until Midnight” effort. This years event planning came with a little help from another pregnant couple to keep us company.  The thought of a 6 month pregnant chick in a club after overpaying for some crappy appetizers just didn’t seem like the best use of resources.  So what do you  do when only half a party can drink?  I’ll tell you what you do, you make a crap ton of food and spend the money that you were going to throw at an ill staffed all you drink event on some King Crab and Filet.  That way your ladies get to eat, and you feel slightly less intimidated by the fact that you’re still going to drink as much as you normally would.  I mean wine not? (that one was for a friend, he knows who he is).   So thanks to some great friends, great cooking (on my part), and Ryan Secerest, we were able to still see Midnight and get home to get a few hours of sleep for my CSN wife who had to work the next day.

In hopes that you don’t think that I’m now just a raving alcoholic, I will also include a few details as to how we spent the rest of our holiday time off…….SICK as dogs.  The week between Christmas and New Years we both had the attack of the stomach monster, as well as a pesky cold that somehow crept in while we were already sick with other symptoms.  My wife also had the experience of something like 5 tests all within a couple of days.  Fetal MRI’s, Echo Cardiograms (misspelled I’m sure), and then the ever so fun “drink this orange flavored sugary crap to see if you’re diabetic”  test.  The good news is that all is looking ok, and while that stupid mass of cells (that I’m going to continue to criticize throughout this blog) isn’t getting any bigger than her lungs are, we are still going to have to keep watch every couple of weeks like we thought.  So to wrap up an otherwise exhausting holiday sprint, we got to at least get a little bit of good news.  I wouldn’t say that it’s great news, but you gotta take what you can get.

With just 14 weeks left at the point these events took place, you’ve got to be asking “Hey Dad, when you are going to get that room painted?”  and “When are those great showers going to kick in?”, and “Hey, I really want to hear your uncomfortable experience with birthing classes.”  Oh you just wait folks.  Within the last two weeks we’ve loaded our calendars and already started with the efforts around the construction of her majesty’s castle.  You can look forward to another post about the ever growing pile of stuff to do in preparation for this little one later tonight.  Until then, enjoy some easy listening and I hope that you’re not watching too much football.  Also, apparently this is her first Rachel Zoe outfit whatever that means. I’m only posting it to try and vent now before I actually have to dress my child in something like this per her mother’s request.  The first time I hear “Put her in that cute furry vest thing with the sparkly pants…”, I’m calling on each and every one of you subscribers to remind me that yes I am a man, and no, you don’t have to know what shoes go well with this outfit.

Holidays Part One

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[audio http://www.adaptationtech.com/music_files/12%20Cold%20December%20Night.mp3]

Michael Buble – Cold December Night

I feel like the majority of this blog will be me apologizing for not keeping it up to date, but if you know me, you know that “Sorry, Sorry, Sorry” isn’t anything new to spurt out of my mouth.  That being said, I’ve broken up a couple of weeks into a couple of posts, as there is always plenty to go around.

This is Holidays Part One to lay out the cornucopia of Christmas events that I have to say are quite interesting in the fact that while there is no child yet out of the womb, the quantity of gifts she received are more than my wife and I got added together.  Part two will mainly be New Years fun, along with a little planning for the new year.

So for a couple with two 6+ kid families, the idea of just ONE Christmas celebration is completely out the door.  We have one Adult Christmas on my side, as well as Christmas Eve.  On my wife’s side, we then have one family Christmas a couple of weeks ahead, then Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day.  Count ’em people, that’s 5 events full of food, drinks, and presents.  And with the addition of a Murder Mystery theme and enough alcohol to run a Buick cross country, let’s just say that Dad has been using the designated driver card a little more heavily than in the previous months.

That being said, while I know that my wife has appreciated the additional variety in food intake, her patience with my ability to keep up “like an Irishman” will definitely be repaid 10 fold in diaper changing, late night feedings, and other such nonsense that I don’t even understand yet.  

As for my little girls part in all of this, she had the excitement of getting 4 car loads worth of gifts for no so sober Dad to pile into the car each night, as well as some of the most feminine gift items a little princess could want.  Tutu Dresses, pink blankets, and bows galore.  She even received both the Playskool Inn @ Bethlehem and Nativity scene.  Now, I’m Catholic, and while I appreciate the gift from my parents, I have yet to understand the need for the Inn @ Bethlehem?  I mean, Mary and Joseph spent all of 15 seconds there, and somehow they receive their own Playskool set for it?  While I still am trying to figure it out, we’ve packed it away with the Christmas decor, along with the small wooden and cotton ball nativity set that we had already, that for some reason my dog tried to eat this year.  Apparently the stick manger and baby Jesus looked at her funny one day and she took it upon her self to set the record straight as to how many babies she was going to allow in this house.

All in all though it turned out to be a successful holiday season for these upcoming parents.  Mom got a Kate Spade diaper bag, and Dad his very own Grill light so that he can cook in the dark without wearing a less than flattering head lamp.  There were a few other smaller gifts in there from Santa or from Baby Girl Denny, and with the help of our over generous families, her first experience with Christmas was a good one.

Sorry that you had to hear one more Christmas song so late into January, but if you share the same man crush on Michael Buble that I do, you won’t care.  Just pretend that he’s singing “Cold January Night”, as it is freezing here in St. Louis anyway.